Kennedy, John F(itzgerald)

Kennedy, John F(itzgerald) (known as ‘JFK’) (1917–63) US Democratic statesman, 35th President of the USA (1961–63). A national war hero during World War II, Kennedy became, at 43, the youngest man ever to be elected President, as well as the first Catholic. He gained a popular reputation as an advocate of civil rights, although reforms were delayed by Congress until 1964. In foreign affairs he recovered from the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba to demand successfully the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from the country, and negotiated the Test-Ban Treaty of 1963 with the USSR and the UK. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through Dallas, Texas, in November 1963; Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with his murder, but was himself shot before he could stand trial. Oswald was said to be the sole gunman by the Warren Commission (1964), but the House of Representatives Assassinations Committee (1979) concluded that more than one gunman had been involved; the affair remains the focus for a number of conspiracy theories.